the danielle

through all of this i am losing myself, and i cannot let the situation with my father consume so completely that there is no trace of my former self. at the end of all of this i need to stay myself. my father as a result of, basically, a variety of brain traumas has become mean. he is no longer meaner, he is mean. though it is not his fault, it does not change the fact that it hurts. i have give in completely to being there for my father 95% of the time. this is causing me to lose myself, and i am scared. i am so scared that his anger builds inside of me and this will effect my relationships with the people i care about. the meanness is not the only thing i see changing in myself. i am becoming self consumed. when i am outside of the home situation, when i am with people other then family members, i feel myself focusing conversation towards myself, and not pay as much attention to others. i am never allowed to think about my needs when i am at home, so i over compensate with friends. i am becoming all the things i hate about my father now, i am need to stop. i need to stay danielle, no matter what, i cannot lose myself.

the list

i have come across this list of 1001 books to read before you die. the list is actually really interesting and i agree with a huge portion of the books. so my new goal is to read every book on the list.

the easy speaker

this week i have given almost everyone in my family a piece of my mind. there were things that need to be said, and i held my tongue. but not anymore. it felt good to say the things that need, or want to say. i think once i started the flood gates opened and i let go. it feels good now, but i need to watch myself, because this could easily get out of hand.

the party to end all parties

today marks the day of my second cousins arranged marriage. i say arranged only because i fairly sure he has never dated anyone. he just happened to one day to be engaged. it is just far to bizarre. part of me really wants to go to the wedding. i don't know why, because there will not be a single moment that i could foresee as being anything close to resembling fun. dull, painful, tremendously boring, yes but definitely not fun. my cousin is going , and i can't wait to hear about it from her... this must really mark a low point in my social existence. i am entertaining myself with gossip on an orthodox jewish wedding. this is truly pathetic. but i must say, my cousin's perspective on the event will be more entertaining then the actual event. she is my cynical counterpart. i think that is part of the reason why i really want to go to this event, i want to experience it with her.

the bore

as always, i am at work with nothing to do. there is three and a half hours which separate me from the prison of boredom and freedom of the outside world. i have already exhausted all the typical forms of entertainment. email, facebook, myspace, mindsweeper and ebay. the sad fact is that once i get out of work there is nothing for me to do, and i am in a continuous cycle of boredom. home, work BORED. but it doesn't end there. no, no my friends, it reaches further. my social life here is mind dulling as well. can a person survive months of boredom, can i move to nyc in the fall and have fun and interact and be involved after months of brainlessness? i don't know.

the break

i am returning from one month break in posting. maybe i was suffering from low confidence in my ability to write well, or a desire to write only meaningful emtires. and as i was rightly informed this weekend, that is not the purpose of a blog. so i am back... the good, the bad and the ugly.

this weekend i was able to escape the mundane boredom of living in my parents home in the suburbs. i had both a happy and sad reunion with the poor city i had called home for two years. as i drove down the side streets of the city and found people walking down the center of the road with total disregard for the side walk only a few feet away, my heart fluttered, i was back in the city i adore.

i had a great weekend away, and i was almost able to completely forget everything going on at home. when i returned to my parents house no one was home and i was still riding off the euphoria of the weekend my happiness. this was instantly crushed the minute my parents walk through the door. there is a dark cloud of stress that follows them everywhere they go. thought i try to be positive, i could feel the my own mood change, i could feel the happiness from my weekend just slip away. my mom is mostly to blame the depression this house puts me into. i am her outlet. everything that she holds in all day, or in this case all weekend, she unleashes on to me. i can't blame her because i need to do the same. but she needs to do this with a third party, with someone whose emotions are not already involved, and invested. i am on the fringe and she just pulls me into the darkside. but i can't tell her i don't want to hear it, because i think that would crush her. i am trapped, but i so desperately want out, i need an out.

the worker bee

i am at work, and there is nothing (at all) for me to do. i have checked my email, myspace, and facebook a dozen times. not much changes when you check your email like every five minutes. i brought two books with me today, i must have known. though the hours drag on when there is nothing to do, it is nice to have a break from folding hundreds of sheet of paper. i believed i have developed a nice little callus in the middle of my palm from all the paper folding.
i have my own office in my new job, my own four walls, two windows, my own door and computer. my own butterfly dish which i have filled up with rubber bands and paper clips. but my absolute favorite thing in my office is the magazine rack filled with the summer 2005 edition of the American Educator. the title of this addition is: Building a Union, Toppling Communism. my eyes are now opened to the problem the american education system was having with communism. the russian and the chinese have nothing on the american teacher.
five hours 30 minutes and counting

the birthday

today is my dad's 59th birthday. i spent the last of my money buying him a really nice birthday present. i knew i spent so much money on him this time around, because this could very well be the last birthday present i ever buy my dad. its been 7 months since the diagnosis. so according to the doctors my dad only has about another 5 months. i am not sure if this was in our heads when alex and i changed our minds and only got dad a 6 month membership to netflix, rather than the one year had originally planned on getting. but something made both of us change our minds.
susan left today and i am worried about the rest of the week, luckily we have the trip to cancun to look forward to. it will prevent my dad from falling into a depression. though i am really looking forward to this trip i am very scared. there are so many things to worried about when i am in the comfort of my own home. and now we are taking all those worries to mexico. i have to put all my worries out of my head and enjoy my time, because i know this is going to be the last family vacation, the last vacation my dad ever takes.
he gets the third scan when we get back from cancun. i don't think the news is going to be good. my feeling might be just a way to protect myself from getting hurt. but i notice a lot of changes between now and the last scan. everyone keeps saying that these changes are just a result of the medication. i think they are doing this, because if you say those words out loud often enough you might actually believe it. whats the point of trying to believe something you know is not true.

the meanie

i have moved back to the suburbs into my parents house. tomorrow will mark the one week at my parents house. this has been a hard week, a very hard week. this whole experience is much different from being a guest. the guilt that was the driving force to the return home is still here, only now i feel guilty every time i am at the house and not spending time with my dad. i also have to see this cancer ever day, every day i have to think about it. there is nothing that i can now do to escape. my dad has also developed a bit of a mean streak. twice today he has intentionally said really cruel things to me. i know it is the cancer, but it is still mean. it still hurts. i know this cancer can change his personality, but every day i do so much for him, and i just get insults and meanness in return. my mom reminds me it is not my dad saying these things, it is the cancer, but that does not make the comments hurt less.
this whole week has just been very difficult. i have to see my moms sadness everyday and it hurts. i want to help her so much and make things better, but there is nothing i can do. there is nothing i can do about anything. i hope that as time goes on it will be easier, i hope.

the end

as of today i have one more days worth of undergraduate education. i will be forever removed from the world of undergraduates. am i sad, no. am i so stressed, unbelievably yes. i have been writing papers since wednesday, and i am so close to being done. today i woke up at 7:30 and actually have been doing school work until five minutes ago when i think my brain stopped working. this moment comes in its most cruel form. i am less then a page away from finishing all the work i need to get done today .. and i am at a loss. i can not longer think, about anything. i must write but all will power is slowly fading away. i wish i could motivate myself. like i could tell myself to keep working, that i am doing a good job, and it would be motivational. but its not, maybe i should give up. would it be sad, one day from the end if i quite college and joined a traveling circus?

the guilt

one of the things i hate is to call home and my dad is completely distracted from what i am trying to tell him.

i called home tonight to ask my parents if they wanted me to cook diner tomorrow, when i come home for a quick visit. i asked my dad if he wanted me to cook the recipe i had selected, he never answered the question. when he is tired its hard for him to concentrate, but it still makes me so frustrated. there is a lot of guilt associated with this frustration. i know it is not his fault, it was not a part of his pre-tumor personality. so, i feel guilty for not being more understanding, not being more patient with my dad. but, i just want to yell at him on the phone, "answer my question!" or "let me finish a sentence!" or "just listen to what i am saying!" and i feel guilty.

i worry sometimes about my mom. i only have to deal with my dads "situation" for short periods of time and mostly over the phone. my mom has to be understanding all the time. this creates more guilt. and now, i also feel guilty for not being able to help my mom.

there is never a time, right now, that i don't feel guilty for something. if i had a day off and went out and had a great time, maybe got a little to drunk, i feel guilty. guilty for not using my day off to see my dad, guilty for having a good time when my mom is always blamed for my dads frustration, guilty for over consumption and not taking better care of myself.

will these feelings ever go away, or will they only be worse once i move to new york city. i know part of the reason i choose to move back in with my parents this summer was to stop feeling so guilty for everything i do and everything i think.

the guilt is sometimes so consuming that i find it hard to be around other people. it's not that i don't want the company. its that my guilty thoughts are so over powering, so consuming that they conflict with my interactions with others, they make it hard for me to speak coherently.

to fight the guilt, i am working on being in the moment. to focus only on what is going on right here, right now. not to think about the what i should had done or what i need to do, but what i am doing.

the preservative

i think i have an intolerance to msg. i am not sure if i actually do, i have a tendency to be a bit of... alright a really big hypochondriac. i though i might have had a peanut allergy because the past two day my throat and tongue was swollen and the only thing that i could have eaten out of my normal consumption was roasted peanuts on tuesday and dark chocolate m&ms yesterday. but i ate almost an entire jar of peanut butter last week.
after a very detailed analysis of my eating habits with my roommates the only explanation is msg. i was able to waste valuable hours, not writing my paper, at 3am this morning looking up all the symptoms of msg intolerance. from my online work, i have discovered two possibilities to my ailments: 1. i am much bigger hypochondriac than i realized; or 2. i actual can no longer eat food containing high amounts of msg. i am going to do a test and spend the next two weeks avoided all foods with msg.
i think my years of eat the absolute worse food has actually caught up with me. i had been trying to be healthier (skinnier) the past two months. but this intolerance my actual force me to eat really well. there will only be snack of kashi and apples, and the dreaded candy and chips will be banned from my presence. i hope i can accomplish this, but i am not very optimistic.

the procrastinator

i am still lacking all motivation to get my ass in gear and write my diane arbus/ judith butler paper for tomorrow. i woke up extra early today to double check on my power point presentation for today and get a jump start on writing my paper. instead, i am writing a completely pointless blog to pass the time before my presentation.

i looked up the definition of procrastination. the one from the american heritage dictionary is my absolute favorite:

pro·cras·ti·nate
v. intr. To put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness.
v. tr. To postpone or delay needlessly.

the sun

had i not had to work today would have been the best.

today was that kind of first truly spring day, it was warm and sunny and happy. its the kind of day that makes me want to avoid all work and spend all day on my porch. today i was reminded what the sun looks like, the actual sun. not that bright spot behind the endless clouds that only appears are the really nice days of the dreaded buffalo winter. i got to enjoy this day in an office with no windows. i spent the entire day trying, and failing miserably to create a work schedule for my fellow employees. but to make up for it i came home and made my self a spring themed mix instead of writing the eight page paper due this thursday. the mix makes me happy, the paper does not. the mix is full of all the songs on want to listen to on a day like today, with all my windows down and my car tape deck turn all the way up.

the mix is as follows:
1. "liza jane" the apples in stereo
2. "fists up" the blow
3. "wagon wheel" old crow medicine show
4. "blister in the sun" violent femmes
5. "stop whispering" radiohead
6. "noah's ark" cocorosie
7. "evening on the ground" iron and wine
8. "love is an arrow" aberfly
9. "new soul" yael naim
10. "goodness gracious me" peter sellers and sophia loren
11. "waterfall" the stone roses
12. "dance tonight" paul mccartney
13. "right moves" josh ritter
14. "puppy love" peggy honeywell
15. "all i want is you" barry louis polisar
16. "the sidewinder sleeps tonight" r.e.m.
17. "johnny two bands" vincent vincent and the villains
18. "mad mrs leroy brown" loretta lynn
19. "my coco" stellastarr

* for close and dear friends (who are willing to cook me food) i will make copies.

the telephone

i am learning to have a better relationship with my telephone. i use to dread having to talk to anyone on the phone about anything other then making plans to meet up and actually talk.

i have upped the phone calls with the family to almost everyday. i found the phone conversation with my dad will dictate my attitude for the rest of the day. a good day for my dad will equal a good day for me. today was a good day. sometimes i think the conversation with my dad will dictate other things as well. if my dad is having a bad day, i find myself hitting every red light on the way to the grocery store, or i am fifteen minutes late to every class. i know i can manage my own fate with less phone calls, but then i am only calling on really really bad days.

the problem will the increased number of calls per week is that i am constantly reminded that my father is not the same person he was before the surgery, and before the radiation. my dad and i use to have a nice father daughter witty banter. that is something that is no longer possible, and i find myself missing that aspect of my dad every time i hang up the phone. i never thought that at my, and his, age i would be unable to talk to my dad on the phone. i use to be frustrated by the sunday phone calls with my parents, now i would give anything to get to have just one more of those phone calls.

intro

i feel my blog needs an introduction or background information, something to introduce why i am creating a blog when i never even kept a journal. i am a twenty something dealing with the fatality of my father. last november my dad was diagnosed with a very serious form of brain cancer. glioblastoma. like the magic eight ball says, "outlook not so good."
at the same time i am also dealing with graduating, graduate school and moving out of my city apartment and back in the suburban home i grew up in and spent so many years and conversations with friends hating.
in my almost 23 years of existence hopeful and optimistic are not the words my friends would choose to describe me. so, i guess this blog is place for my cynicism and sarcasm to come to rest.